Simulator Time?

If i remember correctly you can only count 10 hours of sim time to your total hours. I may be wrong so i would double check if i were you. Hope that helps.
 
I'm away from my logbook and my FAR/AIM right now, so double check anything I say....but if I remember correctly you can NOT count sim time towards total time.
You can log it as sim time, instrument time, and dual recieved (if applicable), but I don't think you can log it as anything else.
 
Simulator time counts toward "Total Pilot Time" but not toward "Total Flight Time".

"Total Time" isn't really defined in the FAR. When the term is used, it's not alone. For example, the 61.159 aeronautical experience requirements for the ATP include "at least 1,500 hours of total time as a pilot" So there's really no such thing as "TT" standing by itself.

It's usually combined with either "pilot time" or "flight time". And there is a definite difference between these two terms.

"Pilot time" is defined in 61.1(b)(12) specifically includes simulator time.
==============================
that time in which a person -
(i) Serves as a required pilot flight crewmember;
(ii) Receives training from an authorized instructor in an aircraft, flight simulator, or flight training device; or
(iii) Gives training as an authorized instructor in an aircraft, flight simulator, or flight training device.
==============================

On the other hand, "flight time" is defined in FAR 1 as
==============================
Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing; or
==============================

That doesn't include simulators. Even the best of them are still not "aircraft"

The logbooks I've seen don't have a column for "total time" or "total pilot time". They do have a column for total "flight" time or "Total duration of flight" and sim or FTD time doesn't belong there. Want to track total pilot time? Add a column and go ahead. It counts for something.
 
You can't log it as total flight time which is what is assumed in that far right column that says "total time". I tell guys to just log it in the ground trainer or flight sim column, or make up a ground trainer column with on of the blank ones.

Under Part 61, you can log up to 20 hours in a ground trainer towards an IFR and 50 hours towards a Commercial. In a PCATD you can log up to 10 hours for the IFR.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Does time in an approved simulator count towards total time?

[/ QUOTE ]

Now a simulator and a flight training device are mutually exclusive terms.

Chances are, you're asking about a "Frasca" or an "AST" which, as far as my feeble mind remembers, is a flight training device.

Flight Training Device:
gallery0029.jpg


Flight Simulator:
sims1.jpg


If I'm wrong, by all means someone correct me, but that's my unqualified memory of the distinction.
 
Well, your "unqualified memory of the distinction" is correct.
I was refering to a flight training device.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Does time in an approved simulator count towards total time?

[/ QUOTE ]

Now a simulator and a flight training device are mutually exclusive terms.

[/ QUOTE ]True. But for the purpose of the question, they are treated the same. Neither, no matter how sophisticated or unsophisticated, is an "aircraft" usable for logging "flight time."
 
All FTD/sim time I log in the simulator column only. I used to log it as filling one line in my logbook, with the sim time entered in the sim column only, and nowhere else in that row; but nowdays I don't bother wasting the time, nor the row in my logbook logging that time unless it's necessary for some sort of certificate/type.
 
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